February 19, 2011

Partly for reasons of symbolism. Historically, Wisconsin "embraced the organized labor movement more heartily than any other [state]," notes liberal activist Abe Sauer.

The Badger State became the first to pass a worker-compensation program in 1911, as well as the first to create unemployment compensation in 1932. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees—the chief national union representing non-federal public employees—was founded in Madison in 1936. And in 1959, Wisconsin became the first state to grant public employees collective-bargaining rights, which influenced President John F. Kennedy's decision to grant federal employees the right to join unions three years later.

Labor historian Fred Siegel offers further reasons why unions are manning the barricades. [Governor Scott] Walker would require that public-employee unions be recertified annually by a majority vote of all their members, not merely by a majority of those that choose to cast ballots. In addition, he would end the government's practice of automatically deducting union dues from employee paychecks. For Wisconsin teachers, union dues total between $700 and $1,000 a year.

"Ending dues deductions breaks the political cycle in which government collects dues, gives them to the unions, who then use the dues to back their favorite candidates and also lobby for bigger government and more pay and benefits," Mr. Siegel told me.

"Mr. Walker would require that public-employee unions be recertified annually by a majority vote of all their members, not merely by a majority of those that choose to cast ballots.

In addition, he would end the government’s practice of automatically deducting union dues from employee paychecks. “Ending dues deductions breaks the political cycle in which government collects dues, gives them to the unions, who then use the dues to back their favorite candidates and also lobby for bigger government and more pay and benefits”.

I'm reminded of the line from Churchill's Finest Hour speech, "Hitler knows he must break us in this island or he shall lose the war".

If the public sector unions can be brought to heel in a liberal state like WI, other governors who have to balance the budget will have the political will, and support, to do the same. That would have big repercussions in DC, as well.

It would also show the public mood on spending has changed radically and the Democrat party, as it's existed for 100 years, will been broken for a generation - or 2.

Here's what a musician friend of mine reported this morning from the Capitol:

"I would say there are less than 500 tea-partiers down there right now, but the cops have given them that whole half of the square. Small turnout, but big speakers, blaring out racist crap like 'Sweet Home Alabama' over and over again. As of now there's still space on the sidewalk opposite where the union rally is, but given the large crowd expected to turn out and the fact that they're being squeezed in to half the space, I'm not sure how long it will last. . . . THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!"

I think his closing line explains a lot. This is some people's fifteen minutes of fame.

This budget control moment is also our race to prevent hyper-inflation that will swamp all citizens the moment dollars are declared worth 30 cents. That currency devaluation has always been the Obama/Soros/World Currency Issuers sole goal in life. That is what has been behind the "CO2 is pollution hoax" which still has not abated although everybody is onto their Faked Science.

In 1975, Van Zant said: "The lyrics about the governor of Alabama were misunderstood. The general public didn't notice the words 'Boo! Boo! Boo!' after that particular line, and the media picked up only on the reference to the people loving the governor."[3] "The line 'We all did what we could do' is sort of ambiguous," Kooper notes "'We tried to get Wallace out of there' is how I always thought of it."[3] Journalist Al Swenson argues that the song is more complex than it is sometimes given credit for, suggesting that it only looks like an endorsement of Wallace.[3] "Wallace and I have very little in common," Van Zant himself said, "I don't like what he says about colored people."[3]

The lyrics of "Southern Man" are vivid, describing the racism towards blacks in the American South. In the song, Young tells the story of a Southern man (symbolically the entire South) and how he mistreated his slaves. Young pleadingly asks when the South will make amends for the fortunes built through slavery when he sings, "I saw cotton and I saw black, tall white mansions and little shacks. Southern Man, when will you pay them back?"

Micheal: The racist song was...

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Another reason to treat Wisconsin like it's their last stand: If public employee benefits get cut this time, what's to keep it from happening again? That's a well Republicans will be able to come back to over and over again. It could become their version of "tax the rich". Of course, considering what public employees get paid, the distinction between them and "the rich" may be hard for the average person to make.

It should be noted that for all the talk about "the unions" and "Big Labor," "Big Labor" actually is dead or on life support. The phrase refers to the big industrial unions, which in their heyday around 1950 had about 35%, or slightly more, of the labor force. Today they are down to about 5%, or even less and still declining, depending on who is counting. More than 2/3 of "the unions" today are made up of groups that were not even unionized in the days of "Big Labor," such as the teachers' unions (NEA and AFT), the SEIU, AFSCME, and probably the United Farmworkers.The AFL-CIO corporate leadership has been taken over wholesale by the former bosses of SEIU and ACORN - people that would hardly have been welcome in the old AFL-CIO that was.

This isn't a last stand. This is a preview of a fight that's going to happen in state after state as public employee unions become public enemies as they try to hold on to gold-plated public-funded health-care and pension benefits while the rest of us are trying to return those states to basic fiscal solvency.

Anyone who thinks this is just about Wisconsin is not paying attention.

Never worked for a union, never wanted to - kept 'em from organizing in a restaurant I owned back in the day.

But for their overreaching, public "us against them" rhetoric of the previous century - continuing even when American union members were already the highest paid workers in the world - there might still be a strong union presence in this country today. Unions can serve a good purpose. But when the opportunity for the big and prosperous unions of the 1970's to change the rhetoric from all about winning to "partners" and "together" with business, unions failed to grasp the changing times, and began the sad road of losing membership that continues to now, where public employee unions are so obviously on their last stand.

And that, my friends, is due to the arrogance that comes from prosperity along with corrupt union representation of the last century. Lay the blame completely there.

This is the stand for common sense in local and state government. I don't know if Walker realized this would happen but he is now a national leader. The lefties are now saying there wasn't a budget crisis; the Republicans invented it. The only state without a deficit is North Dakota and that is because of oil and a conservative governor. The left doesn't think Social Security is in trouble although it is paying out more than it takes in right now.

What we are seeing is the eminent collapse of the liberal dogma built on the anti-Vietnam War, civil rights movement, union movement of the past.

It's worn out. Jesse Jackson showing up to sing "We Shall Overcome" kind of puts the period on that nonsense.

All political movements go through this cycle of being the outsider and broke, then becoming successful, then becoming corrupt.

A new cycle is beginning in which a return to fundamental values, religion, patriotism and self-reliance is building. Some years from now, it will triumph, then some years later it will become corrupt.

If we allow the Unions to overthrow an election and negate millions of voters merely because the Unions are louder, more violent, professionally organized and have more funding, we will be giving in to mob rule and the idea of a free country or a Represtative Republic will have been gutted.

Backing down in the face of the Union temper tantrum and threats of violence will only perpetuate the stranglehold of Unions on Government and put the taxpaying public into a position of servitude to the favored (by the Democrats and by the President) unions.

This is the beginning of the last stand and we'd better not back down and we'd better win.

Every time the word UNION is mentioned one needs to realize Obama just told every Federal agency that no decision could be made by that agency until approved by the union representative.

"Executive Order 13522 is innocuously titled "Creating Labor-Management Forums to Improve Delivery of Government Services." The reality is that the only thing improved will be the ability of federal employee union bosses to tell managers of government departments and agencies what they can and cannot do. What makes this an even more extraordinary turn of events, however, is the fact the Obama administration has empowered union bosses to exercise this new power behind closed doors without fear of exposure via the Freedom of Information Act.

Read that last sentence carefully.It takes away any rights American citizens have to question union decisions.

"The forums are the formal vehicle by which the union bosses -- who may or may not be federal employees -- will impose their will on federal managers, including Cabinet secretaries and independent agency heads.

Unnamed, unknown, union officials now have overriding authority over Federal Employees including Cabinet secretaries. This is insane!

What Fund said seems pretty self evident to me. I'm tempted to think that it's evident to everyone, but I suppose I know better than that.

Wasn't someone just the other day right here explaining that not having the state collect the union dues automatically before issuing pay checks was union busting? And how utterly unacceptable it was to vote yearly to retain the union, how that was union busting too? And although no one has mentioned card check in relation to Wisconsin, hadn't we been hearing about that for the last few years how that was so necessary to unions?

$800 to $1000 a year times just how many public sector union members? Someone want to do the math to see just how much money the unions seem to need to function and just how much they will lose? Not individual *teachers* will lose, but the union organization and management will lose, if an actual majority of employees have to agree they want one and then voluntarily pay their dues?

The most amazing thing in all of this was finding out that the government witholds union dues. I wonder what would have happened if Walker had not gone after collective bargaining this go round, but only asked, in the budget, that public unions collect their own dues?

"A record $87.5 million has been spent by one union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, to elect Democrats. Paid not by voluntary contribution from its members, but by forced union dues from workers—who are paid by taxpayers."

I think the last stand here actually relates to a representative democracy/republic.

Other than the Civil War, the tradition in this country is that the legislators show up in the chamber. They vote. If the opponents do not like the outcome, they have a right to contest it either at the next election via the ballot box or via the court system.

Here the Wisconsin Democratic Senators and the union crew have decided they'd like to govern by a different manner than what we've had in this country.

That my friends is the only issue we need to be discussing here. The specifics of the bill are dwarfed by the principle at stake here.

"If you are employed in one of 28 Non-Right-to-Work states (also called Forced Dues states) and the union negotiates a "union (income) security clause" you could be required to pay the union as a condition of employment. If you refuse to pay a union under a union income security clause, the union can order you to be fired."

Even if I believed your argument (I don't), why is this in a BUDGET REPAIR bill. It's clear they aren't to blame for the budget problems, especially considering their willingness to reduce pay and benefits. No one told the private unions of Harley that they couldn't bargain anymore.

This is why they're throwing their little hissy fits. They won the election in 2008, but they can't implement their agenda because their agenda is unpopular, unrealistic and unconstitutional.

They had total power to do anything and everything they ever wanted, and everything they did is now being un-did.

And worse.

They're actually LOSING ground they thought they occupied:

* government unions* planned parenthood funding* official government funding of Democrats through NPR, PBS

The next battle MUST be the college and universities - Democrat strongholds like Harvard University are sitting on MOUNTAINS of untaxed money they are doing NOTHING with.

That money should belong to all Americans - not be hogged by the privileged few. It should be redistributed for the betterment of our community and the first thing that we need to do to make that happen is to fucking take it from them.

That would be me. I didn't hear a logical answer to the problems I put forth."

Ah, Dose of Sanity.

You see, to most people it's obviously "logical" that in a free society making things "easier" is not sufficient reason to reduce liberty or freedom. No one, certainly not myself, is claiming that the changes would not present difficulties for unions, only that those difficulties are a reasonable burden when balanced against individual liberty. It really should take more effort to create and maintain an organization that uses majority votes to infringe individual freedoms than otherwise.

And quite logically, if the unions provide a necessary service the lack of which will result in the horrors you (or others) describe, then extra props to maintain membership and dues collection will not be necessary.

And, logically, if you're arguing that voluntary involvement equates to union-busting you're arguing for compulsion and a loss of liberty.

It's very odd to hear someone who says that a yearly vote resulting in a true majority before the minority can be compelled against their will to become or remain members is "anti-democracy".

Even if I believed your argument (I don't), why is this in a BUDGET REPAIR bill. It's clear they aren't to blame for the budget problems, especially considering their willingness to reduce pay and benefits. No one told the private unions of Harley that they couldn't bargain anymore

First of all the unions of Harley (I assume you mean motorcycles) are a private company and not supported by forced contributions from the tax payers. If no one wants to buy Harleys it doesn't matter what the union has negotiated, the company can go out of business. No comparison at all. Apples/Oranges. (I hope your lawyerly arguing skills get better)

The reason this, shutting down of future negotiations on benefits (not salaries), is in a budget bill is becuase the benefit packages are what are busting the budgets. To eliminate future extortions by the Unions in negotiating these huge expenditures is to help guarantee that future cash flows as projected by current budgets won't be destroyed by the unions. Also that future benefits as guaranteed by the current contracts will be fulfilled. That there will be money available for future retirees.

It is NOT clear that they are not to blame for budget problems since it is quite quite clear that the cost of Defined Benefit Pension plans and the costs of funding exorbitant health insurance premiums for government employees are the single largest unfunded liability of almost every state in the United States.

You might do yourself, and the rest of us a favor by learning something about how a DB plan works before you spout off again.

"No one is telling anyone that they can't bargain anymore, only that they're limited to bargaining wages."

No, this is wrong.

We're telling the GOVERNMENT it can't unionize any more. We are telling the GOVERNMENT that it cannot bargain with themselves any more.

Private unions (such as those who represent Harley-Davidson employees_ are free to do whatever they want and to bargain with whichever employer is dumb enough to hire them - but government unions MUST be outlawed.

We cannot live free in a country where government employees negotiate with other government employees for raises, bonuses and unpayable pensions. In a immoral scheme like that - nobody is representing US ... The People.

We cannot allow that in America. It's un-American, it's un-democratic and it's also un-Constitutional.

Nowhere in the United States Constitution does it give the federal, state or local governments the authority to organize its workforce to the detriment of We The People. It's OUR fucking country ... not theirs.

In mass production the push to produce more for less ends in severe worker abuse resulting in the remedy of Unions to save the workers very lives. I was a Teamster in my summer factory work 12 hrs a day 7 days a week. We needed our union. But the bureaucrats produce nothing but extortion by delays and false accusations of citizens who try to actually produce something. Therefore unions of bureaucrats are wolves dressed in sheep's clothing of needed industrial unions. Scott has told the truth and exposed them, for which he looks liked a single man destroying their sinecures.(I.e., to them he is a bully.)

@York. I didn't go straight to law school from my undergraduate work. I spent several years in between. I'm posting here because I welcome debate. Please, do.

@DBQ The reason this, shutting down of future negotiations on benefits (not salaries), is in a budget bill is becuase the benefit packages are what are busting the budgets. To eliminate future extortions by the Unions in negotiating these huge expenditures is to help guarantee that future cash flows as projected by current budgets won't be destroyed by the unions. Also that future benefits as guaranteed by the current contracts will be fulfilled. That there will be money available for future retirees. This just flat isn't true. Wisco's problems aren't in the pensions. Why not negotiate with the unions - they are obviously willing to do so?

@Synova And quite logically, if the unions provide a necessary service the lack of which will result in the horrors you (or others) describe, then extra props to maintain membership and dues collection will not be necessary. I was going to attack this paragraph, but I honestly don't understand what you are trying to say here. Rephrase, please - I'll answer more throughly after hearing it again. (Also - no one told harley unions they could only bargain for wages...)

Dose: Why not negotiate with the unions - they are obviously willing to do so?

No, they were not. Again, watch Walkers presser. He explains how the unions spit on his offer to negotiate.

They only want a seat at the table now so they can delay for 15 months.

They had their chance. They overplayed their hand. Screw them.

The Journal Sentinel has long documented Walker's refusal to talk with the unions at all. ("We have nothing to talk about"). It began before he even took office. This is not a matter of opinion this is fact. Take an opposing stance to me all you like, but please don't do it with bald faced lies.

Harley unions are private not public sector unions not public/government unions. The distinction makes all the difference and comparisons between the two are invalid.

I will agree that the State's budget woes are many, however, the largest unfunded obligation/liability that the State has is the DBP obligations which they cannot get out of without going bankrupt and invalidating the contracts with current employees and current retirees. LEARN what a DBP is for God's sake.

The people have been taxed to their eyeteeth and if you want to drive business away from your State and create even bigger unemployment figures, just go ahead and raise the taxes even more.

The best way to try to be able to fund the UNFUNDED future pension liablities is to have employees pay their fair share.

The only way to KEEP the benefits from spiraling out of control in the future is to limit the ability of the Union to coerce/extort even more and more and more. To be able to plan for the future in any budget you have to have some level of certainty about your ability to control expenses.

@Synova: And quite logically, if the unions provide a necessary service the lack of which will result in the horrors you (or others) describe, then extra props to maintain membership and dues collection will not be necessary.

"I was going to attack this paragraph, but I honestly don't understand what you are trying to say here. Rephrase, please - I'll answer more throughly after hearing it again."

Something people *want* they will pay for without coercion.

Something people do *not* want they will not pay for unless they are coerced.

Arguing that making union involvement voluntary means the end of unions is like putting up a huge billboard proclaiming that no one wants unions and no one needs them.

If workers want unions they will confirm that with true majorities, even on a yearly basis. If workers want unions they will become members and pay their dues because they *want* to do so.

That those two stipulations (along with the card check we've heard about for the last few years) are portrayed as destroying unions is proof that unions can not maintain support or membership among their own without additional props. It's is admitting that given an actual *choice* that workers will not see the need or purpose of having a union at all.

"This just flat isn't true. Wisco's problems aren't in the pensions. Why not negotiate with the unions - they are obviously willing to do so?"

I wonder that no one is presenting what Walker is doing as just that.

He's negotiating with the unions.

His own statements are that this bill is necessary in order to give local governments and what-all the ability to balance their local budgets when they are negotiating with their local unions.

Certainly negotiations isn't all one-way demands, the union making demands of whatever state or public agency involved on the threat that they're going to call in sick or have a strike leaving kids without teachers or prisons without guards.

And really... how willing to negotiate where the unions before Walker showed that he meant what he'd been saying for two years?

Dose: are union members too lazy to write monthly checks for union dues. Why would they not embrace this system instead of having dues Deducted like taxes? Would it be because many members would elect out of the system and keep their money? Just wondering.

All of your logic flows from that, as far as I can see. Without the assumption that Unions are something that people would pay for [even if they received the benefits without paying] the rest of it makes no sense to me.

Thanks for rephrasing it though. Believe it or not, I keep an open mind and WILL yield to the best argument. I always hope that others will try and do the same.

Certainly negotiations isn't all one-way demands, the union making demands of whatever state or public agency involved on the threat that they're going to call in sick or have a strike leaving kids without teachers or prisons without guards.

You say walker is negotiating and say negotiating isn't all one-way demands. How can you do that with a straight face. The unions are giving ground on pension and pay - EQUAL TO WHAT WALKER ASKED FOR IN THE BILL. Walker's only reason to push the bill forward is to PREVENT unions from coming to the table again in the future to negotiate.

I think that's why no one is presenting that as a negotiation on Walker's part. Worst argument I've heard all day.

But the Unions offered to fund exactly what Scott Walker asked in his bill, but keep their bargaining rights.

The unions did NOT offer to fund what Walker asked or they would have offered it first instead of conceeding now after one of the world's biggest hissy fits.

Your concern is that will be too effective in the future and will cut back this payments? Or that these payments are not enough? (or dont address the deferred portion?)

Once again demonstrating your total lack of comprehension about DBP plans or finance in general.

I'm still having a problem with the link between the fiscal and union portion of the bill, like I said in my blog post.

Of course you are having difficulty.. This is because you don't understand any of the above and refuse to see the link between uncertainty in Union extortions of more future benefits, while trying to fund the actuarial assumptions of a DBP in an uncertain declining economic environment which has huge ramifications on the ability to pay the promised defined benefits coupled with uncertain returns and years of negative returns on investment portfolios, all of which makes the ability to provide benefits impossible, probably EVEN with the employees contributions.

Actually you are partially right. The amounts that the teachers are being asked to contribute are probably not enough to provide the future promised benefits. They either need to adjust the promised benefits or greatly increase the current contribution. Since the Taxpayers are tapped out and don't want to fund someone else's lavish pensions when they can't even fund their own......My guess is that the answer is behind door number two and you aren't going to like it.

You are in college, correct? Why don't you see if you can't find an economics or business major and have them give you a clue.

I'm done trying to school you. It is a wonder that Althouse isn't crazy already if you represent the caliber of student critical thinking that she has to deal with.

DOS - the PEOPLE have awoken and we've had enough of your garbage union thuggery. Let FREEDOM ring!

Would those be the people in Madison? :)

I'm not even in a union. Whether they have bargaining rights has zero effect on me. However, it seems clear that they have a right to organize themselves and negotiate (not necessarily be successful). If they are inefficient, look to making them more efficient - why attack them on such a fundamental level?

Fen: If your belief is that Neil young's Southern Man is about slavery you might look around on the Internet to learn some other, better, interpretations. Sweet Home Alabama was explicitly written to counter the Young view of the modern south as a place of evil Klan members.

They are accepting equal now to call Scott's bluff that his bill has ANYTHING to do with fiscal responsibility. They've been willing to negotiate for quite some time. (even before Walker came to office)

@Dose, who wrote: "However, it seems clear that they have a right to organize themselves and negotiate (not necessarily be successful) ..."

Really? It seems clear? I defy you now to prove that.

For I say it is not clear ... so clear it up for us and cite the specific section of the Bill of Rights or the United States Constitution where the government is authorized to organize its employees against the interests of We The People.

You claim it is clear that this right exists; so cite it for us.

Where is it written?

It is my contention that nowhere in the Constitution or Bill of Rights is any branch of government authorized to organize its employees to negotiate against the interests of the people of the United States.

There is no such right.

You claim there is a right and that it seems clear for everyone to see.

But I don't want a pony bad enough to make the other choices I'd have to make, nor bad enough to live with the long term responsibility that having a pony would entail.

Thus, priorities.

Because I'm grown up I realize that I'm not going to get whatever I want for free. The notion that "do you own everything you want" is a logical problem to my argument reveals someone with a mindset that one ought to get what they want because they want it. In other words, a child with someone else paying the bills.

I could have a pony if I made the choices necessary to do so. I could even have, if not a jet, at least a private aircraft and pilot's license, if I made the choices and prioritized in the ways necessary to do so.

People are capable of making choices and deciding how best to spend their money and if they don't see *adequate* benefit from an expense they will prioritize in some other way.

Arguing that it's necessary to stack the deck or people won't chose what you prefer that they chose is an outright admission that other people don't share your priorities nor agree with your necessities.

Jimmy Hoffa: If a guy's close to you, you can't slight 'im. You can't slight that guy. A real grievance can be resolved; differences can be resolved. But an imaginary hurt, a slight - that motherfucker gonna hate you 'til the day he dies.(Hoffa, 1992)

DOS - let's not pretend this is about anything BUT the utter destruction of the public sector unions. I am totally in favor of it and I applaud Scott Walker as he tightens the VISE on them. Let the incivility flow...

All you KKK experts need to realize that it started out as vigilante law enforcement groups when Confederate money and Confederate states' authority to enforce its state laws had been revoked in a 12 year period known as the "Reconstruction" The masks were to hide their identity from the Yankee occupation forces. It faded away after 1873, only to come back in the 1920s as a political movement in both the north and the south dedicated to terrorizing whites who felt OK with ignoring the new rules of segregation. By 1950 only the States of Mississippi, Louisiana had any KKK in their local politics. Thank God MLK came along in Atlanta and was unafraid of segregation laws, until he was killed. His life and death lead to a elimination of the social acceptance of rascism among whites. But they still await its end among Blacks, although most younger folks may have finally gotten there.

They are accepting equal now to call Scott's bluff that his bill has ANYTHING to do with fiscal responsibility

I find this an odd characterization. Whatever other effects it may have for good or ill, weakening the bargaining power of public-employee unions just about has to result in the state spending less on public employees over the long run. In what sense can spending less money be said to have nothing to do with fiscal responsibility?

Blogger Dose of Sanity said..."I'm not even in a union. Whether they have bargaining rights has zero effect on me. However, it seems clear that they have a right to organize themselves and negotiate (not necessarily be successful). If they are inefficient, look to making them more efficient - why attack them on such a fundamental level?"

Because state employee unions act directly against the public interest when they extract privileges from cronies in government, privileges for which the public has no choice but to pay.

State employees have a right to organize themselves for collective bargaining, as do any other group of workers. But they do not have a right to a closed shop. They do not have a right to have the state collect dues on the union's behalf against the consent of the workers. They do not have a right to have the state accept the union as representative in perpetuity without the free consent of the workers. And they do not have a right to strike.

In the case of private industry, the tendency of labor and management to conspire against the customer is checked by the ability of the customer to take his business elsewhere. In the case of government, the tendency of labor and government to conspire against the public is amplified by the fact that the public is forced to pay for labor's political lobbying.